Digital Economy Bill

I shall speak to Amendment 4. When an amendment along similar lines was debated in Committee, the Minister rightly noted that we were in danger of mixing our drinks with some USO and some non-USO measures clustered together. That is why I accepted the Minister’s advice and have separated the USO and left it in the Ofcom section of the Bill. This amendment covers the non-Ofcom measures. I am sure that as I have taken the Minister’s advice to frame the amendment in this way, he will be persuaded that there is something to be gained from the transparency that these measures will give and will back up his relatively supportive comments about the importance of driving public acceptance and helping people to understand what they can get from broadband by measuring those efforts and reporting them to Parliament. On that basis, I am sure the Minister will be only too willing to include this amendment in the Bill.